MNREGA staff protest non-payment of salaries

Resentment is prevailing among 77 employees of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) in the district, including 25 women, over non-payment of their salaries for the last 15 months.

These employees have been staging daily sit-ins before the office of the additional deputy commissioner (development) here since Monday to press for their demands, but to no avail. MNREGA staff president Bhupinder Singh alleged that instead of listening to their genuine demands sympathetically, ADC (D) Sukhdev Singh had got deployed police at his office.

The ADC however contended that since the protesters were not regular government employees, they worked on demand and were entitled to 6% money spent under the scheme. He claimed that when they did not do any work under the project, they would not get salary. He said that he was ready to redress their grievances.

On the other hand, the protesting employees asserted that they would continue with their stir and resort to state-level agitation till their salaries were paid.